Rolls-Royce pulls out of Boeing competition after engine problems

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Rolls-Royce has pulled out of a competition to build engines for Boeing’s new mid-size airliner after racking up huge costs from problems with its Trent 1000 turbines.

Chief executive Warren East used the FTSE 100 engineer’s annual results to say he had taken the “brave decision” to not develop a new engine for Boeing’s “middle of the market aircraft” (MMA), the only significant new airliner programme at the moment.

Rolls is facing a total of £1.5bn of costs spread over five years for dealing with reliability problems with its Trent 1000 engines used on Boeing 787 aircraft. Hundreds of aircraft have needed costly repairs as engines shut down in flight, and Rolls had to rush to develop a series...